Nojar

How about one race ranked mp?

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How about one race ranked mp?

from AshesoftheSingularity Forums

I've written about this couple times in Steam forums and here, but wanted to start a new thread in hopes of starting some serious discussion around the issue. Apologies for mostly just copy pasting what I've written before, but I think it kind of gets the message across. Also, if you've read the comments before, you can just skip to posting your reply :)

 

From Steam forums:

I've never really understood why people want gazillion races and units in a strategy game. Intelligent strategic decisions require you to know what you are against. More races just means that you have more knowledge to be absorbed before you can even get into the pure strategic gameplay. Before you have all the necessary knowledge (basically know the rules), it's more about stacking your knowledge of the games races and units against the opponent's. Basically being lucky to throw the units at the opponent that he doesn't know enough about to effectively counter them.

Chess, arguably one of the greatest strategy games ever designed, has one race, six units, and every unit can basically only do one or two things. Anyone can learn the rules (including the units) in 60 seconds, and after that it's pure strategy. And even with just that minimal ruleset, players have pretty much unlimited amount of strategic options during a match.

I would actually like to see the ranked 1v1 to be made PHC only. Having to pick a race, therefore somewhat choosing your strategy, before you even know the map or your opponent, is just guess work. By having only one race the knowledge required to be competitive would be lowered, which would hopefully encourage more of the singleplayer only crowd to join. Additionally the endless debate of balance and the endless effort required to achieve it would be put to rest. Often the imbalance between the races actually limits the viable strategic options each race has when facing one of the others. If your race happens to be weaker at air superiority, it's basically one less strategic option you have - Regardless if it's technically possible.

However, when the game gets rid of the necessity to painfully balance the races for a 1v1 matchup, additional races could be made significantly different. If there would ever be 2v2, 3v3, or 4v4 ladders or tournaments, I would probably allow one of the special races for each side. Maybe not in 2v2s though, and maybe two in 4v4s or bigger games. In such matches the vastly different races would serve a specific role, and it would be up to the teams to effectively utilize their strengths (imbalance). Competitive 1+n vs 1+n games are way different and more difficult to perfect than 1v1s anyway, so I think the additional knowledge requirement would be fine.

 

From the Avatar thread:

I think RTS should first and fore most be about strategic decisions. Well, you can't really make strategic decisions before you have the knowledge of all the rules of the game. Which in the case of an RTS, among other things, means knowing all the units and abilities involved. It looks like Substrate is so different from PHC, that the knowledge you acquire by playing PHC, gives you almost no hints on how to play against Substrate. Only way to be able to strategically play against Substrate (as a PHC player) is to go and tediously study the race beforehand. That's a bit bad game design.

 

To summarize, making ranked 1v1 games one race only and having limited slots for other races in larger matches would:

1. Get rid of any balance issues and the poisonous effect they have on the community.

2. Increase the viable strategic options in asymmetric (race x vs race y) matches.

3. Cut down the amount of knowledge required to be competitive in asymmetric matches and to get to the enjoyment of strategic gameplay.

4. Allow devs to put the balance effort into other issues, making the game better overall.

5. Allow other races to be DLCs without making people yell "pay-to-win".

6. Allow other races to be vastly different, allowing more intersting lore, and adding interesting aspect to larger MP matches.

 

As the second season is starting, this would be the time, probably the only possible time, to make this change.

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Reply #26 from AshesoftheSingularity Forums Top

If both players decide to play exactly the same way every match, certainly the matches will be very similar in the same maps. It's understandable that especially the starts will be very similar in many matches, especially as air is limited and naval is missing. However, it would be completely failed faction design if it only has one viable sequence of actions to take during a whole match. Only thing multiple races would do in this case is, as you pointed out, that with two races you could end up with 2 different kind of matches in each (symmetrical) map. Still a massive failure.

Don't compare the worst possible implementation of a single faction to the best possible implementation of multiple factions. The reality is that you're more likely to end up with one well designed faction than multiple well designed factions. Maybe I don't need to point it out at this point anymore, but this is because you don't have to worry about balance between the races. A well designed faction certainly has more than one viable strategic in almost all situation, reducing the changes of repetitive play. On the other hand, I've explained before how imbalance between factions actually limits your strategic options, increasing the changes of repetitive play.

I still haven't heard from a PHC player who enjoys more playing against Substrate than PHC. I'd even be interested to hear from a Substrate player who enjoys playing against PHC more than Substrate. However, I'd be slightly inclined to think that it would be because of the current relative strength of Substrate in that matchup.

Additionally, I still haven't heard any decent argumentation, preferably with real world examples, on why asymmetric games are better for Ashes than symmetric ones. 

 

On another note: I would wish anyone taking part in this conversation would argument and use real world examples and not just tell someone he is wrong. Feel free to point out if I haven't behaved according to these rules myself. Also, I'd say there have been quite a few messages with counter arguments that I've already covered in my previous messages. I think it would be more productive if people would read the whole thread before posting. I don't want to scare anyone away from participating, but I'm starting to feel a bit like a broken record here.. :)

Reply #27 from AshesoftheSingularity Forums Top

I can't believe you guys let him go on and on.

Suddenly I'm forced to play a race I don't like in a mode that I like. What bullshit is that?

So because he hasn't heard something, it's automatically false. I enjoy playing vs Substrate, because I don't like having to deal with Sentinel turret. How's that.

This guy equates RUNNING AWAY FROM THE PROBLEM to SOLVING IT. How stupid can that be?

Do you know what sc2 forums and discussion thread would tell this guy? GIT GUD SON. Lazy fucks who can't even manage to learn different races. Too hard man. 2 races are too many.

Complaining about having to learn the 2 cap opener. LOL. Did you have to learn chess openers? Bet you don't, lol. The 2 cap opener isn't the rule of this game. This game has only 2 rules: Spend your fucking resources and don't lose your fucking Nexus. Damn. So hard to learn. Damn, I don't want to learn 2 hatch before pool opening as Zerg. Too hard man. I want 1v1 to be Terran only, so I actually can do something with my limited knowledge of the game.

And comparing turn-based strategy with real-timed strategy, what the actual fuck?

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Reply #28 from AshesoftheSingularity Forums Top

Quoting LoveIsAll, reply 27

I can't believe you guys let him go on and on.

Suddenly I'm forced to play a race I don't like in a mode that I like. What bullshit is that?

So because he hasn't heard something, it's automatically false. I enjoy playing vs Substrate, because I don't like having to deal with Sentinel turret. How's that.

This guy equates RUNNING AWAY FROM THE PROBLEM to SOLVING IT. How stupid can that be?

Do you know what sc2 forums and discussion thread would tell this guy? GIT GUD SON. Lazy fucks who can't even manage to learn different races. Too hard man. 2 races are too many.

Complaining about having to learn the 2 cap opener. LOL. Did you have to learn chess openers? Bet you don't, lol. The 2 cap opener isn't the rule of this game. This game has only 2 rules: Spend your fucking resources and don't lose your fucking Nexus. Damn. So hard to learn. Damn, I don't want to learn 2 hatch before pool opening as Zerg. Too hard man. I want 1v1 to be Terran only, so I actually can do something with my limited knowledge of the game.

And comparing turn-based strategy with real-timed strategy, what the actual fuck?

Thank you for your well argumented and valuable input!

Br, A lazy fuck.

Reply #29 from AshesoftheSingularity Forums Top

Quoting Nojar, reply 28

Quoting LoveIsAll,
reply 27

I can't believe you guys let him go on and on.

Suddenly I'm forced to play a race I don't like in a mode that I like. What bullshit is that?

So because he hasn't heard something, it's automatically false. I enjoy playing vs Substrate, because I don't like having to deal with Sentinel turret. How's that.

This guy equates RUNNING AWAY FROM THE PROBLEM to SOLVING IT. How stupid can that be?

Do you know what sc2 forums and discussion thread would tell this guy? GIT GUD SON. Lazy fucks who can't even manage to learn different races. Too hard man. 2 races are too many.

Complaining about having to learn the 2 cap opener. LOL. Did you have to learn chess openers? Bet you don't, lol. The 2 cap opener isn't the rule of this game. This game has only 2 rules: Spend your fucking resources and don't lose your fucking Nexus. Damn. So hard to learn. Damn, I don't want to learn 2 hatch before pool opening as Zerg. Too hard man. I want 1v1 to be Terran only, so I actually can do something with my limited knowledge of the game.

And comparing turn-based strategy with real-timed strategy, what the actual fuck?



Thank you for your well argumented and valuable input!

Br, A lazy fuck.

 

To be serious though :):

- Why couldn't the single faction be made something you like?

- I was genuinely asking about these things I hadn't heard about yet. I didn't say they aren't true. I was actually looking for valid arguments against the single faction approach.

- So you like multiple races so that you can avoid certain strategic challenges? Sounds a bit like running away from the problem (challenge) rather than trying to solve it? However, it's a valid point in the sense that you certainly couldn't avoid players using a certain unit in the single faction approach. Again though, is that even something that Ashes needs to strive for.

- This is a solution to the many problems presented in this thread. I call it a solution because in the end, it leaves the problems solved.

- I think Ashes is specifically trying to be different from SC and SupCom. Therefore, I don't think the response this thread would get in those communities is relevant.

- Let's keep the discussion about the opening in that thread.

- Just as rules define everything you can do, how to do it, and what is the effect in a board game, I believe rules in a video game are everything that you can do and everything that affects everything you do. The actions of other players are not included, they are part of the metagame.

- I wasn't comparing any video game to Chess, I was purely using Chess as an example of a game that has excellent strategic depth and longetivity with just single race and few simple units.

Reply #30 from AshesoftheSingularity Forums Top

Ok so all of the RTS games have a minimum of 2 factions (except PA) Why I want to stick with 1 faction if i have 2 or 3 or 7, i get tired with one then i will go and play the other faction with different units, strategy, etc... so after i am done with the second faction i will go for the third or may go back to the first faction.. that a real RTS game, that's part of the fun

Starcraft have 3 and all of them are completely different, years and years in the making and optimizing, and fixing the factions and units and they still do it all the time after years of changing them.

So what I am trying to say is that there is no game out there that is perfect, you cannot have 2-3completely different factions with different units to be the same, yes some units will be OP and some will suck, and that its gonna happen forever, everyone of us here will bitch at a Unit, or 2 all the time because it will suck or its OP.

what I know for sure is that if you learn how to play with a specific faction you will do good by creating your own counters, over time you will get better and faster with that faction.

Just imagine Ashes of the singularity with 3-4 factions...dude you may quit the game then because it too much for you to handle.

Frogboy Put some Lore, if you read it, you see that they game can have 7 completely Different factions or more, i will love to see AOTS selling really well so the Dev's can give us those new Factions.

More Faction is more fun, and make those faction Completely different from each other. and that will be awesome!

Every-time you add a faction to a game you need to make sure that the new Units will not suck or be OP against the other factions its not an easy job and that may take years.

AOTS still need time to get better but its so fun to play PHC against Substrate or the other way around, just to sit and think what strategy to use, the counters,

The only problem for me with ranked games are the maps, they are too small and the games end very fast, so you cannot really build a strategy, its just rushing and killing the other as fast as possible. But when you play big maps and you create big armies that's when you start noticing and learning what every unit can do, you need time and test some strategies with the units and how to mix them for them to work better together.

In the end I just want to say 1 last thing, you have 1 faction in a game is tiring, you have 2 or more is very interesting and make the game last more. You need to figure out how to use the units what you want to build first.

Cheers man.